Jerry George Jurand

We are honored to celebrate the extraordinary well-lived life of our beloved father, grandfather, great-grandfather, husband, uncle and brother, Jerry Ratajczak Jurand, who peacefully left us, as he had wanted, on July 12, 2026, at the ripe young age of 103 years.

A man with a real zest for life, Jerry approached life with a sense of adventure, opportunity, appreciation, humor, and fun, but was also an example of dogged determination, perseverance, and courage who valued education as an important path to success and loved knowledge for its own sake. A true Renaissance man, he possessed a remarkably broad range of knowledge, skills, and talents and valued development of capabilities to their absolute fullest through education and cross-disciplinary curiosity.

Jerry Ratajczak was born in Piaski, Poland, a small town in western Poland, in 1923. After World War II broke out when the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, he joined and fought for his homeland as a partisan in the Armia Krajowa, the Polish resistance Home Army. To protect his family in the event of capture, he changed his surname to Jurandowski, (later shortened to Jurand upon obtaining U.S. citizenship, and the name he kept throughout his life in America). Toward the end of the war, as the Soviets were overrunning Poland from the east, he and some of his fellow partisan soldiers escaped through Czechoslovakia into West Germany, where he completed dental school, obtaining his D.M.D. degree, and served in the U.S. Army Dental Corps. This is also where he met and married his wife, Ruth, and had two children, Lydia and Robert. After moving the family to the United States in 1956, they became U.S. citizens in 1961. Jerry joined an immunology research team at Roswell Park Memorial Institute in Buffalo, New York, where his third child Darlene was born. Jerry moved his family to Memphis, Tennessee to work as an immunologist and cancer research scientist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in 1962. Because of U.S. regulations concerning dental practice, he had to repeat his dental school studies. He obtained his D.D.S. degree from the University of Tennessee Dental College in 1965, while still working at St. Jude. Jerry was then immediately appointed to the faculty as a professor of Periodontics, where he taught full time and was also engaged in grant-funded clinical research until his retirement in 2002. Jerry maintained a general dental practice in the evenings and on weekends until 2011, when he was 88 years old.

Jerry possessed an insatiable curiosity and lifelong desire to learn, question, and explore new fields of inquiry. He was an avid reader of literature, especially the classics, and loved to listen to both classical and folk music. During his busy professional career and throughout his life, Jerry found time to raise a family of three children, to travel around the world with his wife, Ruth, to go camping and sailing with his family, and to fly airplanes with his son. He collected wild mangoes in French Polynesia and in the Caribbean islands. He climbed trees and built tree houses, went hiking and backpacking in the Smoky Mountains, hunted on his land, canoed the rivers of Tennessee and Arkansas, and swam in the world’s oceans and in his pool. In his later years, Jerry painted hundreds of beautiful works of art, some of which were award-winning, and spent time drafting his memoirs, consisting of stories and anecdotes from his life. He was active in the Polish Society in Memphis, and sponsored his sister, niece and nephew to immigrate to the U.S. from Poland and to become citizens. Several times, Jerry traveled back to Poland to visit with relatives. He loved good food and good company and always had a helping hand and kind words to those who needed it.

There are many more aspects to Jerry’s life, but we are honored and proud to list just a few of them here and to have been part of his extraordinary life journey. He was an example to all of us to live each day to the fullest and partake of the extraordinary blessings life has to offer. As Jerry would say, “Cześć!” and “Do widzenia!”

He is preceded by his loving wife, Ruth. He leaves behind to cherish his memory, his children, Lydia, Robert (Sabitra) and Darlene (Rob); granddaughter, Larissa; great grandchildren, Liam and Andrew and many nieces, nephews and cousins.

Family and friends will gather for a memorial remembrance at 9:00 am on Monday, July 27, 2026 at The Columbarium of The Cathedral of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, 711 S. Northshore Dr. Knoxville, TN 37919 followed by a reception for family and friends at Little Creek Nursing Center, 1811 Little Creek Lane, Knoxville, TN 37922.